Every thing looked smiling around us as we embarked. The morning was now in its first freshness, and the path of the breeze might be traced over the Lake, wakening up its waters from their sleep of the night. The gay, golden‐winged birds that haunt these shores, were, in every direction, skimming along the lake; while, with a graver consciousness of beauty, the swan and the pelican were seen dressing their white plumage in the mirror of its wave. To add to the animation of the scene, a sweet tinkling of musical instruments came, at intervals, on the breeze, from boats at a distance, employed thus early in pursuing the fish of these waters, that suffer themselves to be decoyed into the nets by music. The vessel which I selected for our voyage was one of those small pleasure‐boats or yachts,—so much in use among the luxurious navigators of the Nile,—in the centre of which rises a pavilion of cedar or cypress wood, gilded gorgeously, without, with religious emblems, and fitted up, within, for all the purposes of feasting and repose. To the door of this pavilion I now led my companion, and, after a few words of kindness—tempered with as much respectful reserve as the deep tenderness which I felt would admit of—left her in solitude to court that restoring rest, which the agitation of her spirits but too much required. For myself, though repose was hardly less necessary to me, the ferment in which my thoughts had been kept seemed to render it hopeless. Throwing myself upon the deck, under an awning which the sailors had raised for me, I continued, for some hours, in a sort of vague day‐dream,—sometimes passing in review the scenes of that subterranean drama, and sometimes, with my eyes fixed in drowsy vacancy, receiving passively the impressions of the bright scenery through which we passed. The banks of the canal were then luxuriantly wooded. Under the tufts of the light and towering palm were seen the orange and the citron, interlacing their boughs; while, here and there, huge tamarisks thickened the shade, and, at the very edge of the bank, the willow of Babylon stood bending its graceful branches into the water. Occasionally, out of the depth of these groves, there shone a small temple or pleasure‐ house;—while, now and then, an opening in their line of foliage allowed the eye to wander over extensive fields, all covered with beds of those pale, sweet roses, for which this district of Egypt is so celebrated. The activity of the morning hour was visible every where. Flights of doves and lapwings were fluttering among the leaves, and the white heron, which had roosted all night in some date‐tree, now stood sunning its wings upon the green bank, or floated, like living silver, over the flood. The flowers, too, both of land and water, looked freshly awakened;—and, most of all, the superb lotus, which had risen with the sun from the wave, and was now holding up her chalice for a full draught of his light.